A Google SWE costs the company around $750k average, fully loaded cost. So if those were all SWEs, $6B/yr isn't an unreasonable estimate.

Where did you get the $750K figure? I'm in the Bay Area, Sr Engineer, on the higher end of the pay scale, and no-where close to that figure.

If I were to guess, I'd say that this estimate is including hardware, cloud resources, software licenses, benefits, stock options, and probably more that I can't think of in addition to salary, but I too would like a more detailed explanation on how they came by that number.

Probably also the HR, legal, etc. support staff amortized across headcount.

How do you know how much your benefits and support staff cost?

Fully loaded cost. Typically you estimate that an employee costs 2x their total compensation, across various expenses.

Where is that typically? Most of those are had costs for an employee, not % based. Google has employees from $50K to $1mm+, I very much doubt that all expenses double as income doubles.

Assuming those SWEs produced absolutely zero value to Google, which I bet is not true

Also, I'm guessing legal fees and the raw cost of severance are no joke.

Nothing about my post was estimating the added value of the SWEs, only the cost.

The median in 2021 was close to $300k as per this[0] source.

[0] https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...

Math checks out. Imagine what happens when they lay off 800k!